Vadstena, Östergötland, Sweden Study Visit Report 29 th May 1 st June 2018

Transcription

1 Vadstena, Östergötland, Sweden Study Visit Report 29 th May 1 st June 2018

2 Content p. Introduction 3 Participants 4 Day one 5 Day two, conference 5 Day three, study visit 7 Day four, steering committee 8 Conclusions

3 Introduction The Interreg Europe project Green Pilgrimage fourth study visit and meeting was held in Vadstena, Östergötland, Sweden 29 th of May-1 st June with the main theme digitalisation. Responsible for the meeting was Visit Östergötland, Region Östergötland with stakeholders, notably the Diocese of Linköping, the Pilgrimcenter of Vadstena and the municipality of Vadstena. Vadstena was the natural place for the meeting as it is a nice small town, with quite a lot of tourists, in different forms. The town grew up around the Birgittine monastery in late middle ages and became together with Nidaros the most important pilgrim site in Scandinavia. Pilgrimage was made illegal in the 16 th century and was reintroduced in the 1990-ies.Today about pilgrims come to Vadstena each year. The church of Sweden has a pilgrim center which also has a function as an overall center for the whole of Sweden. The Abbey is the nave of the shrine which also includes the parish, Sancta Birgitta Klostermuseum, the new Birgittine monastery and the monastery garden. The programme started with a pilgrim welcome and an introduction to the monastery area in Vadstena. Day two an international conference was held, day three there was a visit at the pilgrim center, and pilgrim walk as an introduction to the Swedish way of pilgrimage. The last day was dedicated to a steering committee meeting with discussions about coming meeting and the future development of the project.

4 Participants Green Pilgrimage meeting in Östergötland 29/5-1/6 Östergötland Per Rosenberg Markus Lindberg Susanne Fredriksson Jessica Hallros Britt-Lousie Nilsson Maria Jönsson Ewa Lund Sör Tröndelag Guro Vistad Per Gunnar Hagelien Kent Catherine Bradley Peter Morris Anne Clark Caroline Pinchbeck Karen Adams Jo Tinkler Norfolk Charlotte Watts John Jones Amy Jeffs Puglia Andrea Santoro Angelofabio Attolico

5 Day one Pilgrim welcome The group was welcomed in a short pilgrim welcome ceremony led by Ewa Lund, from the Pilgrimcenter, by the saint Birgitta shrine in Vadstena Abbey. The ceremony was followed by a guided tour in the monastery area and monastery museum by Markus Lindberg, Visit Östergötland and Sancta Birgitta Klostermuseum. The evening ended with a dinner in the Klosterhotel hosted by the municipality of Vadstena. Day two International conference The conference took place at Vadstena Folkhögskola Moderator Maria Jönsson Pilgrimage and Saint Birgitta as a part of tourism in Vadstena and Östergötland Ewa Lund, Pilgrimcenter, Jessica Hallros Vadstena Municipality and Susanne Fredriksson, Region Östergötland An introduction to tourism in Östergötland and Vadstena, and what pilgrimage and the saint Birgitta means to the picture of a Lutheran area. Also an introduction to pilgrimage in Sweden and the pilgrims seven keyword Digitalisation in Östergötland policy and project Petra Nordin, Region Östergötland Region Östergötland has a focus on digitalisation in its current development policy. The regions main task is healthcare but also coordination and development within culture, tourism, outdoor activities etc. In all those areas a lot can be gained with more digitalisation. A project about how to use WR, AR etc in connection with heritage was presented Coffee break Digital pilgrim trail, presentation. Best practise. Markus Lindberg, Region Östergötland and Knut Bergsten, Basetool The pilgrimtrail from Ödeshög to Vadstena has been digitalised in the basetool system. A digital map with connected information about logistics, heritage, nature and spiritual logistics such as info about what pilgrim is, good places for services and prayers and prayers connected to the places. Attached is a facebooksite for interaction Digitalisation in Kent Peter Morris, North Downs Way Trail and Anne Clark, National Trails The North Downs Way Trail was trekked in cooperation with Google three years ago. The same system as googles road pictures. A good help for walkers, a way to promote the trail and helpful in maintenance. But soon out of date and hard to update. The National trail has a website with interactive maps providing trail information. Funding is a big issue, donations, selling of old signs and collaboration with local breweries is a way to finance the work Lunch, Vadstena Folkhögskola Digitalisation and cultural heritage, science and tourism Example Vadstena Abbey Eva Lindqvist Sandgren, Uppsala university A project to make a virtual model of Vadstena Abbey in order to reconstruct how the medieval Abbey would have looked and sounded. The model includes objects that can be shown from all angels and how it would have looked like Quality and sustainability

6 Kim Ross, Swedish Welcome There is a lot to think about sustainability and quality in a growing business. How to you avoid leaving footprints. How to use digital information as a way of keeping your business sustainable and what expectations do you want your customers to have Peer review of digitalisation and the future pilgrim Erika Charbonnel, Kairos Future A peer review of what the regions in the project has done in digitalisation around it s pilgrim trails and what opportunities there is. Also, a trend analysis of who the pilgrim of tomorrow is Coffee break Digitalisation of Cammino Materano Angelofabio Attolico, Initenero association The Cammino Materano has used GIS in the planning and building of the trails. The trails are marked and the strategy for social network is about building a community to provide and share information. As it is a new trail a lot of work has been done on branding and promotion Panel discussion, questions, conclusions End of conference The purpose of the conference To purpose of the conference was to discuss different digital solutions for pilgrimage, hiking and cultural heritage. How the use of technology and digitalisation could enhance the experience and at the same time contribute to better sustainability and protection of cultural and natural heritage. And what has been done in different regions and what could be done. The peer review and an attached report on who the future pilgrim is was presented as well as best practises. Target group Pilgrim and cultural developers, policy makers and politicians. The conference was attended by the members of the Green Pilgrimage project and regional and local politicians, officials and representatives from the church. Evening After the conference the project was invited to the bishops residence in Linköping for dinner. There was also time for a visit to the cathedral in Linköping.

7 Study visit The Pilgrimcenter in Vadstena started in It welcomes pilgrims to Vadstena and offers hostel, services and organises pilgrimages in Sweden. It is the main pilgrimscenter for the Church of Sweden and supports other centres in Sweden. The center gave an introduction to its functions and also the background of pilgrimage in Sweden. On the bus from Vadstena to the walk, we passed a few heritage sites, from the stone age to the middle ages, who all, in some way, were connected with pilgrimage. A discussion was introduced how to use pre-christian heritage in modern pilgrimage. Pilgrim walk The way of doing pilgrimage in Sweden was formed during the 1990-ies. It differs a bit as it is not the end of the walk that is important but rather the walk in itself. To test the method and also to use the digital map we walk from Öninge to Hästholmen along Östgötaleden. The walk was about 4 km and the group made seven stops to think about the pilgrims seven keywords. As a remembrance each word has a pearl in a rosarybracelet and a short text that can be the ground for discussions or meditations. The group was asked to discuss along the way and also walk some parts in silence. Evening The day ended with a peaceful evening in the monastery museum with medieval music and reading from the revelations of St. Birgitta. A programme used for external conferences to, whatever suject they have, give a sense of pilgrimage.

8 Steering committee meeting The last day was dedicated to a steering committee meeting at the Old Town Hall. The following was discussed: Review of actions points from previous meetings. Claim 2 and reasons for underspendings. Upload of good practises. Discussions about pilot actions. Coming study visits i.e. Norway in September and dates for the rest of the meetings. Update on coming reviews. Actions plans and how to benefit from the project in the future and continued work after ending the project. Final conference, when, where, about what. See minutes for more details. Conclusions The visit took place in an unusual nice summer weather. In organising the visit, the ambition was not to stuff the programme to much in order to get room for reflections and time to talk to each other. That is after all was pilgrimage is about and coming together and discuss ups and downs and compare experiences is important in this stage of the project. Talking about what different regions can do together is crucial to the overall outcome of the project. The project has come to a point where the participant knows each other good enough to give and take and the work is in real progress. We had very good discussions, formal and informal, about what has been done and what to do in the latter half of the project as well as how to continue after. We also had interesting conversations about different ways of doing pilgrimage. The Swedish way is based on heritage but more clearly connected to religious activities along the way as in other regions it is more focused on hiking connected to old pilgrim tradition. To use the method of pilgrim walking was a new experience to many participants. Walking in itself is also a formidable way of supporting conversation and sharing experiences. The overall theme was digitalisation. That can be many things for example a help for the pilgrims with information in a sustainable way, a way of promoting pilgrim trails, a way to plan and maintain a trail and a way to experience things that is to fragile to see or reconstruct something that is gone. To use digitalisation right and in a pilgrim friendly way is not easy. The meeting gave a lot of new ideas, experiences and thoughts about how to use digitalisation and also examples that was not a success. The visit lay a good ground for a continuing work in the next meeting after the summer. A lot of the ideas can be processed at home and get ready for making action plans. Thanks Ewa Lund, Pilgrimscentrum, for showing the pilgrim center and leading the walk. Bishop Martin Modeus for dinner and a nice evening in Linköping. Vadstena kommun and mayor Jane Råsten for reception the first night.

9 Appendix Invitation and programme: 29/5 Tuesday Arrival and check in Pilgrim reception in Vadstena abbey Guided tour in the medieval monastery Reception and dinner Vadstena City Council Green Pilgrimage Interreg Europe Project Vadstena 29 May- 1 june /5 Wednesday (Op Mass in Vadstena abbey) Conference Vadstena Folkhögskola Saint Birgitta and Pilgrimage as a part of tourism in Vadstena Digitalisation in Östergötland policy and project. Presentation of digitalised pilgrim trail. Östergötlands part in the project. Three best practise, presented. Digitalisation in Kent. Digitalisation of cultural heritage, science and tourism Example Vadstena Abbey Quality and sustainability. Presentation of report. Digitalisation, pilgrims and who is the pilgrim of tomorrow Lunch end of conference Bus to Linköping Visit to the Cathedral Dinner at the residence of Bishop Martin Modéus 31/5 Thursday (op Mass in Vadstena abbey) Visit to the Pilgrims Center Tour Rökstenen and Alvastra monastery Lunch at Ombergs turisthotell Pilgrim walk Swedish style to the Monastery of the Sacred Hart Ca 10 km, forest. Good footwear is needed. Test of the digital pilgrim trail. Ca back in Vadstena Optional evening meal at participants own expense Optional Peaceful evening Monastery museum 1/6 Friday (op Mass in Vadstena abbey) Steering committee meeting

10 Catherine Brady Lunch Steering committee meeting continues Kiss and fly 2/6 Optional: Tour to the archipelago (participants own expense) Start early morning from Vadstena to Söderköping. Boat to Capella Ecumenica ( with pick nick lunch. Drive to Norrköping/Linköping during in the afternoon. Times Times Tuesday and Friday is possible to change so they match arrivals and departures. Times Saturday will be fixed when we see your departure times. Accomodation: Vadstena folkhögskola Singel room Sek 624:- (ca. 60:- euro) Double room Sek 869:- (ca. 85:-euro) This is our main accommodation, if we are many, maybe some can share room so everybody can stay at the same place. There is also possible accommodation at Pensionat Solgården Sek 1000:- (97:- euro) All prices incl. breakfast. Extra cost is the dinner Thursday night, approx. Sek 250:- (ca 25 euro) Arrivals We can arrange pick-ups from Linköping railway station, Linköping airport and Ödeshög. If you fly in to Stockholm Arlanda or Norrköping it s easy to go by train to Linköping. See From Stockholm Skavsta there are busses to Linköping See From Gothenburg there are busses to Ödeshög Rasta Please fill in when and where you will arrive if you want transport. Departures We can arrange transport to Linköping railway station, Linköping airport and Ödeshög. Se arrivals. For those of you who choose the tour on Saturday, we will drop you in Norrköping at the airport or for train to Arlanda or bus to Skavsta. Or take you back to Linköping airport. Please fill in when and where you will depart if you want transport.